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Knight-Mozilla Initiative: Challenge 3 – People-Powered News

Over the past few weeks, the Knight Foundation and Mozilla have been running a series of news innovation challenges. The goal: get the world’s smartest hackers, designers, and tech-savvy journalists thinking about how news organizations can harness the open web.

People-Powered News

How do we get data, reporting and local knowledge into the hands of users, wherever they are, no matter what devices and platforms they’re using? This is an open-ended opportunity to share your world-shattering news innovation concept.

The Open Web Opportunity

For this challenge, we’re looking for your most revolutionary ideas. How can we harness the open web—the technologies, the connections, and the people—to make news better for the people who create and read it? What should a news website look like in 2011 and beyond?

We’re not talking about infographics, mashups, or interface tweaks. We’re not talking about solving corporate IT problems. We’re talking about reaching right into the core of journalistic endeavors and hacking the system.

How to Enter

To enter, simply submit a rough idea or napkin sketch. You can do this however you see fit. For this first stage, we’re interested in learning how you would tackle the problem. We can work together to advance your ideas.

For the final MoJo challenge, we’re looking to you for this kind of radical thinking. We want to work with you to develop new technologies to inform, educate, and enlighten. We think that participation is the key. And we think journalism can learn a lot from the open web here.

For some inspiration, check out the full challenge brief, which includes links to some interesting ideas and technologies.

Winners of the first round go on to build prototypes, attend a news innovation workshop in Berlin, and may even take on a one-year paid fellowship to build their apps.